CAT 2009 - Hard to Catch

CAT, One of the biggest exams in country conducted by IIMs most reputed institute for business studies. But 2009 is the different year for CAT exams. This year CAT went online. And the contract went to Prometric, renowned name in online test. And it cost whopping $40 billion to IIMs.

This year since the online system went on air, it went down. It cost several futures. Several years of preparation went in vain for many candidates. It created havoc all over the country when those systems are still not working fine even after 4 days. But who will take responsibility for that. Prometric just happily said that it happened due to virus. But is it not a responsibility of Prometric that it should have conducted thorough test of the system before opening it for students? The students who did not get the chance to give exams are still in better situation because they got new dates but what about those students who have completed all the sections of the paper but at last, system said your DI section is not completed and time remaining is just 15 minutes.

Here, I tried to find some feedback on Prometric's online test system. This link tells that the user had a problem with Prometric, but even after 2 months it did not get resolved. In another instance we can get the fair idea of the horrible experience with Prometric systems.

Every system has it's own drawback and the problems are natural to have. But when there are so many stake holders involved, many years of hard work are at stake, is it not the responsibility of respective authorities to make sure that system works fine even in the worst scenarios? They should have done many round of testing before opening it for CAT aspirants.